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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29229180">OMORI didn't succumb.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TailaBlu/pseuds/TailaBlu'>TailaBlu</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>OMORI (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>don't take insp from this for how did works, i do not have it, not an accurate take on did i just hyperfixate a lot, post good ending!!, this is suffering, will add characters probably</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 08:42:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,133</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29229180</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TailaBlu/pseuds/TailaBlu</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Moonlight Valley is just the right distance from Faraway Town for Sunny to feel like he can take a breather. In Moonlight Valley, he can live his life. Concurrently, it's also just the right distance for him to be able to visit with a bus ride or two. It felt so far away, yet... it wasn't.</p><p>Sunny isn't entirely interested in speaking to the people in Moonlight Valley, however. All he can think about is the people he knew.</p><p>...And when he finds a drawing in his notebook that looks familiar, he doesn't know what to make of it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>133</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Sandy Dreams</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is SPOILERS for literally all of OMORI! Please be careful! I mean it! I'm also going to pre-emptively use all of the same warnings seen for OMORI on this fic, since I honestly don't know where I'll be going with it. Yes, everything I write is very 'off the cuff', I rarely plan for anything. @v@</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You loved her and you killed her.”</p><p>Sunny had tried to get those words out of his head for quite some time now. He’d defeated everything that held him back from trying to confront everything. He thought it was gone for good. For the whole trip to Moonlight Valley, his head was his own. Everything was... normal, though for him it wasn’t normal at all. He was used to always going to White Space, no matter where he slept.</p><p>But in the car, while mom drove after the movers to Moonlight Valley, he dozed off and experienced the first real dream he’d had in 4 years.</p><p>By the time he woke up, his eyes were already a little wetter than usual, and he could still feel the sunlight on his skin and the taste of the ice pop he was eating with his friends on his tongue. But it faded just as quickly as reality caught up with him. It was night, and just for a moment, he thought he saw a sprout mole in the seat beside him.</p><p>When he looked, it was there for all of one second, before it faded away. His mom, still driving, let out one of her half-giggles. She was visibly tired, but kept her hands firmly on the steering wheel, “What’d you see this time, sweetie?”</p><p>“...Mm, sprout mole,” he answered quietly.</p><p>“Ah! So you’re answering me this time! Are you awake, or are you going to doze off again?”</p><p>He blinked blearily. Oh, he was definitely still sleepy. He nodded a little, barely able to keep his eyes open. This drew a slightly livelier giggle from his mother, “Alright, alright, you can go back to sleep dear! We’ll likely be at the new house once you wake up again!”</p><p>Trying to stay awake despite mom’s encouragement to sleep was like trying not to go under the surface of a large body of water. He would gradually only be awake for less and less seconds, before he found himself truly going under again.</p><p>As he felt himself going further and further into unconsciousness, he began hearing it.</p><p>...The soft tones of White Space.</p><p>His eyes shot open, but he didn’t really jolt out of his sleep. He was still tired... Why was he so tired?? He took a nap earlier.</p><p>His mother’s lips turned into a pout as she regarded him using the car’s inside mirror, “Honey, I told you not to fight sleep! Ah, but you remind me of when you were little. I used to have to drive you around to make you fall asleep... Maybe you’re just sleepy because we’ve got a long car ride to go through?”</p><p>Sunny ignored her words and rubbed his hands against his closed eyes vigorously. He watched the stars popping about from under his eyelids and he resolved to himself not to hear that again.</p><p>He wanted to go back to dreaming, like the dream he had when the car ride first got boring. He still remembered bits and pieces of it, but even those were fleeting. It was like the beach visit they all had as kids... but the age they were now. He remembered that Aubrey didn’t bother with dressing a certain way for the beach, she just showed up in her usual attire, albeit without her jacket. The jacket would make it hot, he’d assumed.</p><p>Everybody was messing around in the sand and sun, and even though Mari wasn’t there with them in his dream, it... almost sort of felt like she was. As if she gave the beach visit her blessing.</p><p>Maybe he was missing them already. He’d believe it.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. This is your bed. Would you like to lie in it?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>[WARNING: Description of an eye injury in this chapter as well as mention of derealization! Stay safe!]</p><p>Sunny reminisces on some things while trying to get used to his new living space.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sunny didn’t really know what to do after he’d unpacked. He almost expected to hear the repeated knocking on his door he’d heard when Kel was trying to get back in touch with him. Reminding himself of it made him miss it all the more, really.</p><p>Oh. Kel had given Sunny his phone number, before he left. He could probably call him, right?? With that thought lingering in his mind, he took out his black cellphone and turned it on. He pressed a few buttons, and entered a staredown with Kel’s contact.</p><p>Wait. No. He rubbed his hand against his forehead. Despite the last occurrance of this ending in him slashing Aubrey with a steak knife, this run of it felt far more shameful. Of course he shouldn’t call right now. Everyone was likely still thinking about what happened to Mari. What he did to Mari.</p><p>He blinked a few times as that feeling he’d gone so long without processing bubbled up inside him. He let out one hiccup, then another, before he buried his face in his hands. Before long he was sobbing into them, although he tried to be somewhat quiet. It was late, and the neighbors were probably trying to sleep.</p><p>He’d learned to forgive himself, at least partially. He told the others because hiding it from them made him miserable. No, worse than miserable - it made him want to die with the secret, so maybe they wouldn’t ever be hurt by it.</p><p>But he didn’t want to think of it that way. Even though it pressed and pressed on him, he reminded himself of their reactions.</p><p>Kel had spent the most time with him during those last few days. Kel had been the one trying to move on, Sunny remembered. But this... halted him. The realization someone he was somewhat close with had actually killed another friend of his...</p><p>‘Kel loved her and you killed her.’</p><p>He stayed true to his promise, but Sunny could tell it was hard. He didn’t want to go back on his word, especially after Sunny explained just how vulnerable he’d really been. He didn’t want to abandon him, make the same mistakes he’d made before when it came to... everyone.</p><p>When Sunny was about to leave, Kel went out of his way to reach out to him. That pattern didn’t change. But the idea of calling or even texting Kel right now felt wrong. Kel was living up to his end of the promise, why couldn’t he?</p><p>Ah, his bandage got wet. He was going to have to change it.</p><p>He got up and walked off into the bathroom. It was weird... His own room had its own bathroom now. Plus, it wasn’t a two-story house. It was an apartment. Though... it seemed fitting. A two-bedroom apartment for the two people that live there.</p><p>When mom pulled into the parking lot, she snapped her fingers a few times off to the side, and sighed in relief when he’d reacted to it. Then she went on to say, “We’re going to be living in an apartment from now on. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but for right now, I think it’ll do us swell! Plus, you can always invite your friends to come over! Kel’s mother said that if the boys were up for it she’d happily pay their bus fare!”</p><p>Then she gave him a shiny new phone that looked like a flat black brick, and taught him how to move the contacts to his new one. She even said she’d been trying to give him this new phone for years, but he never seemed receptive to it.</p><p>...But he loved this new phone. It was odd and smooth, but most importantly, very shiny. He liked how it shined despite his fingerprints.</p><p>He blinked a few times. He was getting off-track.</p><p>He’d insisted to his mother that he could handle changing his bandaging. He just... really, really did not want his bandage to get wet. The injury was in his eye, not really on the skin. Basil... He was surprised at him, but he’d punctured his eye. It didn’t poke it out, but it definitely still poked it, and caused an open wound on it. He was lucky he was already somewhat weak when he did it, or he’d definitely be missing his eye outright, or possibly even dead.</p><p>The thought of garden shears alone was enough to make Sunny’s heartrate hike up by a lot. Luckily he’d learned how to calm down, so with much effort he managed to regain his composure.</p><p>Life after what happened felt... odd, for Sunny. After confronting a figment of his imagination, time sometimes seemed to blur. Much like the time he saw the sprout mole in the car, he’d oftentimes wander the apartment just to see what was in it, and come face-to-face with a figment he hadn’t dreamt of proper in a little while.</p><p>It had been a few days since he’d arrived in Moonlight Valley, and he’d been having more of those real dreams. He loved the dreams, because although they sometimes reminded him of the dream world he’d created, they also felt delightfully out of his control. It was no longer lucid dreaming, and because of that it felt like, paradoxically, he had more control over his mind. He didn’t have to be Omori. Omori was gone. He could be himself, with his real friends, doing all sorts of fun things together.</p><p>He’d had a dream where Aubrey was Space Boyfriend and he was Sweetheart. He didn’t really know how his mind came up with that one, but it was hilarious. And... kind of cute. There was also a dream where he and Basil rode on skateboards made out of flowers, somehow. And then the skateboards could fly, and the houses turned into vines.</p><p>The more nonsensical things were, the more safe he felt.</p><p>His thoughts stopped rambling as he finished changing his bandaging. He thought of the diagnosis again. Corneal abrasion. His doctor told him that due to the nature of it, it’d likely take a week more for it to heal fully, and not to rub his eyes.</p><p>...Yeah, too late for that. He was going to guess he’d set it back some now. He’d better give it two weeks... He hissed as a stab of pain hit his eye. Yup. Two weeks.</p><p>Now that he was finished replacing the bandage, he began walking off toward the kitchen. That room was part of the long hall that worked to unite both bedrooms. The kitchen was connected to the dining room, which was connected to the living room and front door. Because the kitchen was open, he was able to tell that mom wasn’t in the kitchen. Of course she wasn’t, she was working late.</p><p>When he got to the kitchen, he turned on the light and saw a pastel pink sticky note attached to the fridge.</p><p>‘Hey Sunny! I made some chicken-noodle soup for you! I thought it would be nice! It’s in the fridge, just heat it up! Mommy loves you!’</p><p>When he opened the fridge, he took note of how empty it looked. The light in the fridge reflected off of the blue of the bowl, and a thought crossed his mind.</p><p>Hero.</p><p>He wanted to be a cook before what happened to Mari. Before he happened to Mari. He also always seemed the most mature and forgiving out of everyone. He was surprised to hear how hard Mari’s death hit Hero, even despite being aware of how close they were. He’d never wanted what he’d done to effect anyone so harshly... maybe that’s why he’d tried so hard to forget it.</p><p>He didn’t blame Hero at all when he had to fight to keep his composure. He also didn’t blame him when he calmly told Sunny not to get in contact with him ever again. In truth, he didn’t want to speculate. Part of him - logic - told him that it was said out of anger, and that he’d come around eventually. But he knew it was selfish to think of it that way.</p><p>‘Hero loved her and you killed her.’</p><p>He knew that well and good. Of course he wouldn’t want to talk to him again.</p><p>He put the bowl into the microwave, before scrambling to pull it back out when he realized he’d turned it on with the fork inside. Once he took it out, he put the bowl itself back in. Frowning subtley at himself, he waited as the bowl spun and spun in the microwave. He was lucky it was a plastic bowl, if it were one of the glass ones he was sure he’d burn his hands once it was time to get it out.</p><p>He was a little worried he wouldn’t feel it or care. He’d forgotten the doctor’s warning so quickly, and was so hard on his eyes during the ride in the car... He’d definitely have to visit another doctor this week because of it.</p><p>He stared as the numbers ticked down. He stood there, standing alone in an almost-vacant apartment. Sure, the decorations tried to make it look lived-in, but it wasn’t just yet. It was a little eerie, but he could live with it. He’d dealt with worse back home.</p><p>As the timer finally ticked down to 1:00, his mind wandered to think about Aubrey.</p><p>He thought about the hug. That’s all he wanted to think about. He didn’t want to think about the betrayal in Hero’s eyes, nor the sadness and confusion in Kel’s. The time she nearly killed Basil had changed some things, though... she pulled away just as quickly as she’d hugged him. Hugging a murderer isn’t exactly on anyone’s bucket list.</p><p>‘Aubrey loved her...’</p><p>And he killed her. He knew. He resisted the urge to press the balls of his hands into his eyes again. One of them was already injured, best not to make it worse.</p><p>Beep! Beep! Beep!-</p><p>He popped open the microwave and a billow of steam rose from its chamber, before he gently took the bowl out of it and slipped the fork inside of it. He stirred the soup around a little, closing the microwave door with his wrist as he did.</p><p>‘Basil loved-’ He shook his head. That thought pattern was getting truly intrusive at this point. He wanted to focus on the soup his mother lovingly prepared for him in advance. She likely still expected the same ‘sleeping all day’ pattern out of him. Which... mind you, he still had, but he was trying to break out of it.</p><p>Pleasant dreams meant he happened to want to sleep about as long as he used to when he was swallowed by White Space. So of course mom prepared this, he was doing the same thing as before.</p><p>He walked his way back toward his room. No stairs. The smallest of rejoices happened in his mind, before it was swallowed by something.</p><p>‘Mom chose a place with no stairs.’</p><p>No, no, no, he was not going down this road. He shook his head, hoping it’d somehow help alleviate the incoming thoughts. He walked off into his room, sitting at his bed with his soup. He was going to eat his soup, and enjoy himself. No more of this mantra, he just... wanted to move on.</p><p>“She doesn’t want you to kill-” he shoved the fork full of chicken and noodles into his mouth. He felt his heartrate begin to quicken as he realized he blurted that thought. Hell, it didn’t even feel like blurting. It just slid out as naturally as all the other thoughts. But this didn’t sound like him.</p><p>He let himself chew and swallow the food he had in his mouth. He sat there and waited, trying to see if he’d imagined things, or if he just so happened to blurt out an intrusive thought. His doctor told him he’d been dealing with derealization at some points too - maybe that’s what this is?</p><p>He waited and waited and waited. He waited so long that his soup got lukewarm and he felt like he’d only heard things. By that point, he sighed and began to eat his soup again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I hope you're enjoying this! This is 100% based off of my own take of my own experience playing Omori! I got it the day it released and finished playing in 12 hours total playtime, and I haven't gotten up the guts to play again, but I STILL love it deeply. This is to say, if I don't reference content that is well-known that I haven't experienced for myself, that might be why! Thanks for reading! &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Doodles from the dead.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>During a dark and stormy night, Sunny spends some time in his room.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was a few days since what happened with the soup. He couldn’t get it out of his head, that tone of voice was... Well, obviously it sounded like him, but it also sounded like a tone of voice he really did not want to come face-to-face with again.</p><p>Omori was dead, he told himself. Dead and gone, the duet solved everything and he could go about living a normal life. He could still hear its soft tunes when he thought hard enough about it. So, he used it as a sort of warding charm. Whenever he started worrying Omori wasn’t gone, he’d remember the soft piece that he and the memory of his sister played together. The piece Mari deserved to have played. For that much longer, he could stave off his worries.</p><p>He’d had a few close calls with White Space. As he waited for the first day of school to arrive, in between his nights of sleep he’d see glimpses of it. A perfectly monochromatic tissue box in a dreamt-of classroom where all other colors were in place. That monochromatic laptop tucked in the background of a time he dreamt about flooding an office with paint. Mewo, Mari’s beloved pet cat, curled up and napping conspicuously close to Basil in one of his dreams.</p><p>He remembered Mewo, but for some reason he couldn’t really piece together where she’d gone. All he knew is that one day, she was missing, and she began appearing in White Space. The thought of having hurt her somehow popped up, but he immediately ruled it out. The days following what happened - he remembered - were mostly taken up by him staying in bed all day. At one point, he slept for 27 hours straight. He remembered that time very well, because his mother told him she had to keep walking in to check on him.</p><p>“I was so worried,” he remembered her saying, “You are my only son... Of course I had to make sure you were okay... I’m so glad you’re okay...”</p><p>Part of him wondered what her version of ‘okay’ was. Was it ‘getting by by the skin of our teeth, not crying at the funeral, becoming a complete shut-in’ that somehow passed her motherly radar? Maybe all she was worried about was him ending up dead as well. Death by grief.</p><p>Wait, not ‘our’, his. He was used to thinking of Omori, too, but now that he was out of his life for good, he ought to keep himself from slipping like that. It was just him, now. He was just a figment of his imagination anyway, barely real enough to matter.</p><p>‘But he did end up mattering. He nearly killed me,’ he thought to himself.</p><p>A crack sounded outside, making him jolt. Oh, right, there was a thunderstorm. It sounded so close this time... He was thankful to it for helping him keep alert.</p><p>He thought back to the glimpses... The one thing he hadn’t encountered yet was the notebook Omori kept. At one point, he even remembered seeing the lightbulb and hands, albeit a subtler version of them. In the background of a library dream, one of the lightbulbs was pitch black, no light reflecting off of it. In a dream at a restaurant with Basil, the waiter had gloves that somehow were pure white, the ‘lines’ that made up the shape of the gloves a bright red.</p><p>But the notebook was a mystery. Maybe it was good he hadn’t seen it - maybe it meant White Space was getting further out of his reach.</p><p>He slowly eased himself out of bed - for some reason he always felt the need to be quiet during thunderstorms. He met the floor on the tips of his toes, before slowly sinking down and sliding himself under his bed. He perched his new phone with its new case and let it light up the underside of his bed. Now he had a little bed fort, with protection from all sides because of his blanket. Ah yes, a masterpiece of a bed fort.</p><p>He smiled to himself a little at that, before feeling around in the pieces of darkness his phone’s light couldn’t place. He slid closer a notebook and pencil set, and stared at the notebook’s cover for a good minute or so. He’d brought this notebook over from home, and hadn’t ever used it before they came to Moonlight Valley. But once he arrived, he’d resolved to use it at least once. Now, he kind of liked using it. It’d always sort of be this place to both write down things that happened during his day and doodle off to the sides of his notes once he felt like it mid-writing. He probably wasn’t going to take it to school, though.</p><p>It looked like Omori’s notebook a little too much when he unpacked it, so he did pretty much everything in his power to give it some color. He bought stickers from the local PoppaMart, as well as some acrylic paint markers in a set. Then, he bought an issue of Space Boyfriend, and used it as a reference. Once he was done? It was a bootleg cover of Space Boyfriend, with himself making a cameo in the background as some poor sap with his space helmet off. He preferred that over his notebook looking like... well, like ‘his’.</p><p>He opened it up, greeted by the first page. He was fairly good at note-taking, so he thought he could manage passable grades if he studied and note-took as much as he needed to. Though, ‘passable’ was a high B or A, to him. He didn’t want to bring stress to his mother. Plus, he hadn’t gone to school proper in 4 years... He ought to surprise her by being efficient.</p><p>‘Our house is very big,’ read one of the notes. Just a little lower it corrected, ‘Nevermind it’s an apartment.’</p><p>‘Going to unpack.’</p><p>‘Done unpacking.’</p><p>‘Basil said he’d send white tulips sometime soon.’</p><p>‘Look at eye later.’</p><p>‘Call Kel.’</p><p>‘Call Kel later.’</p><p>‘Call Kel later.’</p><p>‘Call Kel later.’</p><p>Sunny frowned at himself. This reminded him of something his mother said, when she told him Kel had been trying to get in contact with him for weeks on end. Now he was just frozen in place yet again, hesitating over and over.</p><p>Kel wanted to be there for him, right? That’s what he seemed to want to do. But with his thoughts so occupied with how the others reacted, and Kel’s own reaction, he couldn’t get up the gall to do so. Maybe Kel would reach out sometime soon. Or maybe he could be friends with Basil forever.</p><p>No, that type of avoidance only made things worse. That type of avoidance decided he couldn’t tell his friends what happened for 4 years.</p><p>His eyes shut tight as he thought of all of their pained faces. The hurt in their eyes as they connected the dots he’d placed in order for them so bluntly. He was always horrible with words. He tried his best, but he was always a better listener.</p><p>Tomorrow. He’d have to do it tomorrow. If he couldn’t get up the gall, he didn’t deserve any of them.</p><p>He started flipping pages - through the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th- Wait.</p><p>He paused, laying there with his notebook. He was staring down at it so intensely, but the page he was looking at was empty. Something was on the 4th, and it struck a recognition with him he just didn’t like. He thought about the thick black lines a crayon would make, he thought about the messy strokes, he thought about the red crayon markings added on. Outside of the perfect cleanliness of White Space, he probably wouldn’t be able to have such perfect black-and-red crayon drawings.</p><p>He told himself it was just a trick of the light, at first. Lightning flashed outside, but he barely perceived it. Was this how people who said they were haunted felt like? Omori was dead, this didn’t make any sense. And even if he were around, he’d be confined to his dreams. He’d always been confined to his dreams.</p><p>He turned from the 5th page to the 4th.</p><p>There was a mostly-monochromatic illustration of a 12-year-old black-haired boy drawing over the face of another boy wearing a flower crown. Surrounding him was a forest of red arms and hands, some of them holding photos marred with black scribbles over their subjects. Even though the drawing was crude and disjointed, it was easy for him to imagine. His imagination was always so vivid.</p><p>‘When something ruined all my photos... I didn’t want people to think it was you, Sunny.’</p><p>He laid there, staring at the odd artwork. Staring at Omori’s artwork. He felt his heart sinking into his stomach.</p><p>‘Ah! So you’re answering me this time!’</p><p>He didn’t really know what to think. He just... really wanted to be wrong. He didn’t know or understand what this was, and the mystery of it shook him. What was he supposed to do, just assume this was nothing? He couldn’t - he’d assumed it when Basil pushed the blame onto him about the photos. But... He really didn’t remember doing that at all.</p><p>Why would he ruin the photos of Mari?? He’d never do that, he loved Mari.</p><p>‘You loved her and you killed her.’</p><p>With the punctuation of thunder and lightning, Sunny became afraid. He jolted, nearly hitting his head against the wood of his bed, before he slammed shut the notebook and crawled out from under his bed.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I almost titled this chapter "Maybe don't lie in it actually."</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. I love eggs</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>While Sunny tries to deal with his dread, his mother tries something a little different.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi hi! Sorry this took so long. I'm one of those Texans who got knocked out cold by the snowstorm. My family and I are okay, but it definitely knocked my rhythm of writing out a bit. I'm really sorry about the gap!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sunny spent his morning staring at the crude drawing. For him, the mystery wasn’t what it was. It was obvious what it was depicting - probably somebody being very frustrated with Basil. If this was who he thought it was, he could easily imagine what for.</p><p>But... Why? Why did it seem like that shambling shadow of a person was still around?</p><p>...Okay, maybe that’s a little rude. But he doesn’t really owe him his kindness.</p><p>He remembered eating breakfast that morning, when all he could think about was the drawing he’d found.</p><p>“Sunny, are you going to eat your eggs? You love eggs.”</p><p>“I love eggs,” he’d parroted, internally hoping that was enough to make good conversation.</p><p>His mother let out a little sigh, “You know Sunny, sometimes Mommy gets a little worried about you... You can talk to me if you need anything. Anything at all.”</p><p>He liked how he knew that she meant it, though he always knew she tended to have trouble with always being there when he needed her. She was very busy because their current living situation wasn’t really at its best. Its ‘best’ was when Dad was here. But Dad likes to leave when things get difficult, so he skipped town as soon as what happened happened. He tried really hard to not hate him for that. After all, he poured all of his hate into himself.</p><p>‘It’s better he’s gone, he would’ve left even if it wasn’t your fault. He was looking for an excuse.’</p><p>The sudden thought jolted him out of his reverie. It was that voice again. It melted in with his thoughts, like it was natural to think that way. Though... he remembered, for the longest time he always had those interjections. It was just that, now that he’d confronted it, he could put a face to it.</p><p>He closed his eyes. The drawing had burnt itself into his brain by now. It lingered and he could imagine it in motion, the boy scribbling over the blank face of Basil. By now, he was starting to wonder if denying it was going to get him anywhere. He’d done that all this time, and that’s how things got so out of hand, right? He couldn’t just keep blaming him, even if he didn’t want to see him again.</p><p>The best thing to do in a situation like this is to ask the person responsible, right?</p><p>Yet with such an easy solution presenting itself to him, he felt his heart skip a beat. His eyes opened again. An anxiety welled up inside of him, clawing at his gut and chest. It felt like he’d make a mistake, like making a decision you couldn’t take back and it all crashed down on him at once.</p><p>It wasn’t as bad as the first time, but the nails of dread dug in deeply.</p><p>He just knew he was going to wake up in that white void if he went to sleep tonight. ‘If’. As if his mother was going to let him pull an all-nighter - after four years of him appearing to be stable after a bunch of maladaptive daydreaming and... dreaming in general, it was likely she’d be encouraging him to sleep tonight.</p><p>Knock knock knock! “Sunny?”</p><p>Speak of the devil. Wait, no, she was much nicer than that. Speak of the angel.</p><p>“Sunny, you’ve been in your room all day... I know that isn’t especially odd for you, but if you remember, you mentioned you weren’t doing all that well lately... A-After all, I did have to pick you up from the hospital... Mmh... I don’t mean to trouble you, dear, but Mommy loves you and wants the best for you, so...”</p><p>He heard a soft noise, something gliding against the carpeting. He leaned a little forward in his bed, and that’s when he saw it: a single piece of paper.</p><p>“From what I understand, you find it hard to put your feelings out there sometimes... Sweetie, I’d love it if you wrote me something to tell me how you’re feeling. ... You don’t have to do it right now! Mommy is very patient, you know that. Just tuck it back under the door if you ever get around to it..! I’ll be checking every time I leave my own room, so...”</p><p>There was a pause. It stretched long - what was he doing? Why wasn’t he saying anything? This was... an honest gesture, wasn’t it? She was never really the dishonest type, just absentminded sometimes. Sure, she could be frustrating, but he knew that she’d tried. This wasn’t because he didn’t believe her, he just...</p><p>...God, he couldn’t. Something about the gesture was bringing tears to his eyes. He felt himself sniffle, but he brought his hand to his mouth, not wanting to draw further attention.</p><p>She let out a soft sigh. It wasn’t anger or disappointment, but it was a sort of resignation. “I understand, sweetheart. If you’re asleep, I hope you have good dreams tonight.”</p><p>He heard the soft footsteps as she left. Every time he brought his thoughts to the paper, it wrapped right back around to her gesture, and it set him crying again. It felt good to be able to let it out, but if he was doing this, why was that presence still around? Wasn’t he meant to swallow up all of that?</p><p>When he found he couldn’t stop weeping, he tried to self-medicate his tears with his thick, soft blanket. He found himself swaddling in it, wrapped up in a comfy cocoon to try to hide his sorrows away. He had his head rested on his pillow, and without even realizing it...</p><p>Sunny began to doze off.</p><p>...</p><p>...</p><p>...</p><hr/><p>Welcome to White Space.<br/>He’s been here for as long as you can remember.</p><hr/><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm ALSO really sorry about the length of this chapter! I don't know what kind of length I should be shooting for, so I just wanna update it when I feel like something substantial comes up in my head that I think would be cool to update it with. If it's a little shorter, then that's just what happens I think!</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. New colors</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sunny ends up in a new space.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>At first, his eyes stayed shut. He felt the wind whipping around him, but it didn’t throw him into a panic. He wasn’t afraid of this at all. The wind around him felt comforting, almost. He didn’t feel a drop of fear, at least, until he’d opened his eyes. That’s when it finally kicked into overdrive.</p><p>He could see a rapidly approaching black mat, and he was convinced he’d have a hard landing that would put him in a lot of pain and knock the wind out of him. Instead, when the two collided, he felt himself swaddled in it. It flowed with him like a sheet, wrapping around him due to the air resistance. Sunny was still falling.</p><p><em>‘Where am I going?’</em> He thought.</p><p>Soon he had his answer. Still cloaked gingerly within the black sheet that’d wrapped itself around him, he felt himself reach a harsh landing. It didn’t hurt, but It did knock the wind out of him. As he slowly began to move against the sheet, raising his head up and beginning to yank it away from his gasping face, he caught the first few glances of light.</p><p>Most of the world looked… the same as it was when he was making his time Omori’s. Endless white void from all directions… however, a new change he’d noticed was that the mat he sat on was as black as the sheet that’d enveloped him. The things around him were also slightly different. The laptop wasn’t overrun with static and white noise, and instead sat a plain white desktop, conflicting with the black mat and sheet. The notebook Omori had previously drawn in – or, at least, it looked like that one Omori had made his own – was littered with splashes of color provided by bright stickers.</p><p>Sunny looked down to address the black sheet, and immediately noticed that something else was different: himself.</p><p>He was a moving, breathing drawing, much like the friends he’d recreated desperately during his earlier trips through his dream world. His skin was white, with blue line making up the lines of his skin. But… everything else? Everything else on him popped with color and was outlined by that strong blue his friends was outlined with. Even his hair was blue, here. All ‘black’ on him was now ‘blue’, and the khakis he wore were now a pastel orange color.</p><p>“I’m a… dream-person,” he remarked to himself, staring down at his drawn hands. After a few more moments, he realized he’d missed two more details.</p><p>Stretching down ever-present from the non-existent ceiling was a single black line. Instead of an emptiness where the tip was, or some sort of lightbulb, there rested a handle.</p><p>He stared up at it for a long while, before slowly reaching for it. He gripped onto it, and it felt cool. Not cold or uncomfortable in any way, but as though it had been sitting outside during the fall. With the handle firmly in his grasp, he slowly began to pull it downward.</p><p>
  <em>Flick!</em>
</p><p>The time with which it took things to change was like the time it took to blink. His eyes widened as he marveled at how the expanse was now as black as night. He looked down and came to see a white mat lying on the floor. As his eyes retraced their steps, they came to fall upon a black laptop, sitting there with white noise and static. His eyes widened slightly as they moved to regard the black tissue box. He felt his heartrate hike up when he saw Omori’s notebook. Bare, aside from a single odd sketch on the cover.</p><p>And that same heart sank into his stomach when he heard the opening of a door.</p><p>He turned to look the way of the door, eyes as wide as saucers. The white door was swinging closed, and exposed by its closure was him. Monochromatic, thousand-yard stare, monotonous Omori. The thing he was sure he’d made, that tried to kill him when he tried to confront what had happened.</p><p>He’d paused for a little too long, because before he knew it Omori had suddenly turned to face him. …What was that look? Shock? Horror? …No… Surprise?</p><p>The moment Omori’s arm rose, Sunny yanked hard on the handle. The colors instantly shifted back to their original palette – the one he was quickly coming to associate with safety. He watched as the boy disappeared before his eyes.</p><p>He could pretend that he didn’t see that. But… He felt like he couldn’t, anymore. He’d wanted to pretend it was nothing, but he knew deep down that things would only worsen if he played it off as nothing again.</p><p>He knew he had to confront it – or, rather, him – but he wasn’t ready to yet. He looked at the black door that offered itself to him, in place of the white one. He approached it, raising his hand to practice knocking. After a few knocks, he grabbed hold of the knob.</p><p>The knob felt like cloth, for some reason. As he turned, it felt more and more like cloth. As he pulled the door open, his mind felt bleary and clouded. Once it was completely open, he found himself blinking himself awake.</p><p>He brought up the fistful of blankets he was twisting as if it were a doorknob. He frowned to himself a little, as his gaze went from the blankets to the ceiling.</p><p>…He didn’t actually succumb, did he?</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I am so sorry about how long this took! School got super stressful, so this had to take a backseat. School is winding down now, though. I'll have a good month to write before another semester begins for five weeks! I hope you like this new chapter, and again, I'm really sorry this took so long!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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